Hamilton: The Revolution

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Granted, I'm the sort of person who loves talking and reading about the process of creating art, and why certain words were chosen, and rhyme schemes, etcetera, so I'm always going to want as much of that as possible. There were lyrics and moments that I'm dying from curiosity to know how he came up with them, and why he wrote them a certain way, that nothing was said about. Readers around the world have thrilled to Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, and Killing Jesus—riveting works of nonfiction that journey into the heart of the most famous murders in history.

Then on November 2009, a newly minted President Obama and First Lady Michele Obama welcomed Miranda and his collaborator Alex Lacamoire to the White House's "Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word". At the last minute Miranda decided to sing the first song from the Hamilton Mixtape, his performance that night is already on the history books. You can watch the video here.

Alexander Hamilton to Stephen Moylan

And in the passage about Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow, we learn that when Chernow's wife passed away in 2006, he chose for her headstone the line "Best of wives and best of women" from Hamilton's actual goodbye letter to Eliza. Sobs. Perhaps Miranda's greatest achievement might be helping a new generation to see the history of America as part of an overarching narrative and these historical figures as fallible human beings that did something extraordinary. The show is about the builders, carpenters, the story behind the music and lyrics, the crew, actors, singers, dancers, the scenic designers, the choreographer, the director, the history, .....the musical performance. And, honestly, I didn’t think much about it until September when I saw that NPR was streaming the album. I immediately grabbed my earbuds and hopped into the bathtub to listen to it, and that was really the first time I actually started to pay attention to the show’s content: researching the cast; trying to understand the historical context for the song’s lyrics; trying to find interviews with anyone who was involved in it. My appreciation grew, and I began to realize just how buzzy and sensational it was for everyone else, too.

Hamilton: The Revolution : Being the Complete Libretto of the Broadway Musical, with a True Account of Its Creation, and Concise Remarks on Hip-hop, the Power of Stories, and the New America Lin-Manuel Miranda ( Book, Music, and Lyrics/Alexander Hamilton) is the Tony and Grammy award-winning composer-lyricist-star of Broadway's In the Heights— winner of four 2008 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Orchestrations, and Best Choreography with Miranda receiving the award for Best Score.

The museum will close at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, October 31, 2023, due to a private event. It will reopen for regular hours on Wednesday, November 1. I have always loved history. Always. And while Rap isn't my #1 genre, something about the mastery of lyrics that some rappers have will never cease to amaze me. When I first heard about this play--that it took one of our founding fathers (one that had had such a HUGE impact on our young nation but that no one spoke much about) and turned the events of his life into a rap musical I just KNEW that this was going to be something that I was going to love. I'd say it has been at least three months since I have really started getting into the play and I seriously sing applicable lyrics or talk about these historical figures throughout each and every day (ask my boyfriend and sister). Alexander Hamilton was just such an intricate man that I think the best way to show our nation what he was really all about was in the form of rap lyrics. It truly encapsulates his life. From his lowly beginnings to his gradual and then meteoric rise to the top--we are able to FEEL every experience. I get goosebumps every. single. time. listening to "Yorktown (1776)" when Hamilton sings "Tens of thousands of people flood the streets." after the battle of Yorktown is fought and won. (I mean just picture the EXCITEMENT of this huge mass of newly free people. I can practically hear the roar of their voices as they flooded the streets). I tear up every. single. time. listening to "It's Quiet Uptown" and "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story." I just think this play is SO ENTIRELY IMPORTANT because it shows the rise of our nation, but it also shows how we struggled in the beginning. Just as we are struggling now. This glorious, oversize testament to the uplifting, gorgeous, diverse, multiple Tony Award—winning musical Hamilton is a must-have for initiated and new listeners alike. —Sarah Hill, Lake Land College, Mattoon, IL School Library Journal I’ve never been a huuuuge musical theater nerd, but I do follow it somewhat casually and that summer, I listened to practically nothing but the cast album for Lin’s Tony-winning first musical, In the Heights. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard before, but it was magical. Then there's a note about Lin's homage to Ja Rule in the song "Helpless" that describes Ja's voice as "a bear roaring at the bottom of a well, approximately." Which is the best description of Ja Rule I think ever.